put out the light
by hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: Darkness and light. Arthur/Eames; completed 5/29/11.
1. Chapter 1: Perfectly Fine

There has always been something dark inside of Eames. Some hollow space that he's tried to fill up with whatever was handy: booze, of course, and sex with whoever was willing, and drugs for a while but not anymore, and then, now, with work. When he becomes someone else, he's realized, the parts of himself that he's afraid, no, not afraid, just reluctant to face, they fade. They don't disappear, exactly, but they press less on the edges of his consciousness and he can feel almost normal. Well, almost normal within the context of impersonating someone else inside the dreams of a person that the team is manipulating. Arthur always says that context is important.

Arthur doesn't know about the dark emptiness inside him. At least, Eames thinks that's the case. The thing with Arthur is that you can't ever be sure how much he knows. He's got a damn good poker face, and too much respect for other people's secrets to let on that he knows everything. Like with Cobb and Mal, Arthur knew everything but was standing away from it, letting Cobb deal with it his own way. Maybe that's what Arthur is doing with Eames, letting him work on himself by himself, not intruding. Eames wouldn't mind the intrusion, though.

Of course, Arthur was ex-military, too, like Eames. They got into the dream technology around the same time, even worked together a bit on an international cooperative team. But that was a long time ago, and Eames has blocked a lot of those memories for various reasons, and Arthur has never referenced that time. Arthur has never mentioned how on their first training exercise Arthur ended up having to shoot Eames in the head and Eames had woken up, and then an instant later Arthur woke up too. He'd shot himself from…something. Remorse? Fear at being alone in the terror of the dream? Something had made him do it. And Eames had locked eyes with him as the techs scrambled to unhook them, get the sedatives, slow their heartbeats. And Arthur's eyes had reflected back the worst secret parts of Eames, like Arthur had them too, and Eames had never felt anything like that.

But Arthur never mentioned it, ever. Had quietly applied for a transfer and left. Eames had gone to shit for a few days, screwing up jobs, losing his hold on his personas, drinking too much and using too much. After a while, he stopped. He remembered Arthur's eyes, and his precision, and that small secret knowledge that Arthur had killed them both out of some sort of emotion that Eames wanted desperately to understand. And so they worked together, and bantered, and held each other carefully apart, and tried very hard to appear to be fine, perfectly fine.


	2. Chapter 2: Sharp Stabbing Pain

And then months ago, in the warehouse, talking about the Saito job, Eames and Arthur got in a spat. Maybe two sentences, no one seemed to notice, but. There was a crackle, a hum, something in the air. They don't work together very much, so it could have been there the whole time and just not noticeable, but there is an energy between them. Eames immediately thinks about sex, of course, because it's _Arthur_ and he's always so bloody put together. But beneath that, under the chemistry Eames tries to convince himself is reciprocated, there's something else.

And Arthur, later, glaring at him and arguing with him and acting like they…But then the last time, in the dream, Eames not being able to stop himself, and trying so hard to tell Arthur to be safe, to be careful, to survive, and all he can say is something stupid and obvious about the security. But it's worth it, in the moment, for Arthur's smile — a fast smile, hurried and tense, but real, too, with his dimples — and his attempt at making a joke. And then Arthur telling him to go to sleep, with that look in his eyes that meant, Eames thought, that he knew what Eames had been trying to say. And then after the job, brushing against each other at baggage claim, Arthur shaking his hand and disappearing; Eames would have shot someone if it meant Arthur would stay, or work with him again.

But Arthur never wants to work with him, always has to be convinced or bullied or bribed into it. For Eames at least, there's always the old fear of the old dreams and of having to see Arthur shoot him again, see Arthur's face. And Eames thinks — hopes, maybe, in some twisted strange way — that Arthur resists working with him for that reason, too. But it's equally likely, if Eames is honest with himself, that Arthur doesn't like working with him for some other reason. Maybe Arthur is honestly annoyed with Eames's lack of precision about anything but his own disguises. Maybe Arthur senses Eames's hunger for things to change and is trying to keep it from happening. Maybe, and here is the reason Eames becomes impulsive and angry and snappish, Arthur knows the darkness inside Eames and fears it, and wants to be far away from him.

Sometimes Eames can convince himself that in another life, without the dream tech, he and Arthur would be…something. Something different. Maybe lovers, he'd hope, but even just friends would be nice. People who could be in the same room for a long time, or who could talk about things instead of mincing around words, or who could sleep. Sometimes Eames thinks about how Arthur might look in the mornings before suiting up and a sharp stabbing pain goes through him because he knows that Arthur will never let him see that image. Arthur is too smart, too controlled, too _specific_ to let Eames in. Raggedy, messy, sloppy, broad Eames, with something he tries not to call "sin" because he's not a Catholic anymore all weighing down on him all the time, with night terrors and scars and bad knees and old memories that won't let him be whole.


	3. Chapter 3: A Little Chat

Whenever the team manages to convince Arthur to work with Eames, it's always really Ariadne who does it. She somehow figured it out. Eames doesn't know how, but she knows how he feels about Arthur, and she seems to support it, he thinks. And so she bullies and coaxes and argues with Arthur about how Eames really is the best forger they know (which he is) and how Arthur is just being stubborn (which he is), and eventually, most of the time, he gives in.

And today, starting on the new job, Eames shoots her a look that he hopes lets her know the depth of his gratitude. It's been a year since the Saito job, since Eames let Arthur walk away again. This time, he tells himself, Arthur will have to give him a straight answer. If the problem is Eames's sloppiness, he will work on it. If the problem is the possibility of having to kill each other in the dream again, he will explain. If the problem is the darkness around the edges of Eames's consciousness, he will discuss. One way or another, Arthur is going to have to talk to him. Not banter, not jokes, not coded exchanges meant to say something else.

Arthur finishes his briefing on the outlines of the job, and everyone begins to disperse. Ariadne, her damned intuition doing what it does, shoots Eames a look and hurries Yusuf and Dom out of the warehouse. Arthur gathers papers and begins to stride away.

Before he can chicken out, Eames clears his throat. "Arthur, would you mind if we had a little chat?"


	4. Chapter 4: Bugger That

If you didn't know Arthur as well as Eames does, hadn't been studying him in detail for years like Eames has, weren't attuned to everything about him like Eames is, you might not have noticed it. His shoulders tensing, his neck straightening, the tiniest clutch of his left hand. These meant not the obvious, that Arthur was tense, but that he was…steeling himself, maybe. Preparing for something to happen. If he had been facing Eames, his eyes would have flickered ever so slightly to each side as he surveyed the room. He was ready for anything Eames could throw at him.

His voice, though, was perfectly calm. "A little nervous about the job, Mr. Eames?" Like in the hotel room last year, a joke to defuse the tension. Arthur hated tension; Eames knew the others didn't notice, but in an argument, in a screaming match, Arthur always played peacemaker. He'd just keep talking in a normal tone about whatever they had been discussing before the fight broke out. People calmed down fast around him, because Arthur rarely let himself get involved. Well today, Eames was going to make him get involved if it killed them both.

"Yes, well. We've been working together how long, Arthur?" Eames tried desperately to lounge in his chair, something that normally came easily to him.

Arthur turned to face him, a precise spin like all military men. "Off and on, maybe five years."

"You mean eight, yes? The…" Eames choked on his own breath. "The, er, the military thing."

Arthur's face was carefully blank — he was so good at that. "Oh. That. Well, since we didn't work together again after that, and it was a very short interaction, I suppose I forgot about it."

Eames leaned forward, abandoning all pretense of disinterest. "Darling, I need to talk with you about that. The military thing. The," he choked again, "the dream."

Now, finally, an expression in Arthur's eyes. For just a moment, they looked the same as they had that day: haunted, reflective, shaken. Whatever Arthur had experienced in the dream had shaped him into a man who would stop at nothing to have control; Eames knew that for a fact. For Eames, of course, the dream had turned him into a man who tried not to control anything lest he…But Arthur was talking.

"I don't particularly care to discuss it, Mr. Eames." His face was blank again, his eyes empty. He spun on his heel and strode toward the door.

"Arthur, damn it all, wait," Eames shouted as he leapt out of his chair. Arthur kept walking, no doubt expecting Eames to do his usual dance and stop.

_Well bugger that_, Eames thought to himself, and followed Arthur out of the dim warehouse into the bright sun.


	5. Chapter 5: Facts

Inside Arthur's head, everything is clean lines and tucked corners and bright right angles and perfect. There are no messy lines of poetry, no dark edges, no deep terrifying holes to edge around like he sees in Eames. The team jokes about how Arthur has no imagination, but it has never bothered him. Imagination he leaves to Eames and Ariadne and the rest. Facts, though; facts are what Arthur knows. Facts, Arthur understands better than anyone else. He remembers everything, clearly and with unfailing precision. Specifics, details, minutiae: Arthur is good at those things.

He is not good at dealing with Eames. He has never been good at dealing with Eames. Over the five, no, eight, no, five years they have worked together, though, he has learned some of the man's patterns. He wears sloppy clothing, his hair is always hideous, he cannot spell worth a damn, and he never follows Arthur out of a room. These are facts, filed away in the squares and spirals of Arthur's memory, and they never fail him.

Eames, of course, fucks everything up. Arthur's eyes adjust slowly after the dimness of the warehouse, and his hearing is muffled by the sound of his own heartbeat. Still, the time it takes him to realize that Eames is following is unacceptable, and some part of him begins to rage. How dare Eames break the pattern? The rules exist for a reason, dammit, and if Eames can't even be bothered to follow them…

With his ever-present military bearing, Arthur spins on his heel to face Eames. Panting with a mix of emotions he chooses not to examine, Arthur glares at the man. "What." It is not a question, not with Arthur; he should not have to question Eames at all, Eames should be doing what he always does, this is ridiculous. Arthur can feel the blood pumping in his ears, in his balled-up hands, behind his eyes. Seeing Eames's face, which is normally made to look carefully pleasant or cheerily lecherous, shocks him. For the first time in years, Arthur is looking directly into Eames's eyes.


	6. Chapter 6: Without Warning

Eames stares at him, and Arthur stares back.

Arthur has worked hard to ignore the hold Eames has on him, to sublimate all of that tension and emotion and fear and need into a tiny square section of his obsessively organized self. There is no extra room in Arthur's mind for Eames, no space for a messy lapsed Catholic who never buttons his goddamn jacket, who can't be bothered to wear matching socks, who is imprecise and indiscreet and interested in more than Arthur is willing to give.

But now, looking directly at each other, not joking or under fire or arguing, just looking at each other — now Arthur is struck with uncertainty. Unflappable Arthur hates this feeling, when everything is shifting and suddenly he is not standing in the proper place anymore, but instead is clinging to a wall or floating in the air. He hates it, hates the loss of control. And if Eames represents anything, it's a loss of control.

Without warning, Arthur lunges forward, intending to make Eames stop looking, stop staring, stop breaking the rules. Fist meets face. Eames does not fight back, just holds his hands up to prevent the worst, and this enrages Arthur even more, and he cannot stop himself. He swings again and again, the sickening sound of his hand on Eames's flesh, the gasps and cries Eames tries to stifle making everything worse, and then Arthur realizes that Eames has risen, somehow wrapped around him and is holding him still, and it's only then that Arthur feels the tears streak cool lines down his blazing face.


	7. Chapter 7: Fault

Arthur's tears dry, crackling on his cheeks, and he feels his eyes beginning to puff up. At long last, he pulls his head away from Eames's chest and looks at the damage he's caused. Eames is battered, bruised, bloody. His busted bottom lip is the worst immediate injury, but he'll have a hell of a shiner in the morning, and the odd way he's holding his left arm sends a wave of panic through Arthur. "Eames, fuck, I'm so sorry—"

Grimacing, Eames raises a hand to Arthur's face, cutting him off. "No, love, I know. It's fine, I'm fine, don't worry."

Arthur feels himself nudging into Eames's hand like a cat, butting up against it for comfort. Eames's hand is oddly soft; there are calluses and scars, but they just add dimension to the softness. A few minutes passed. Eames's hand grew warmer and warmer from the heat of Arthur's face. Arthur clears his throat. "You…I'm sorry." He shakes his head, dislodging Eames's hand. "So. Eames. What can I help you with?"

The laugh that comes from Eames is mocking. "Ah, yes, Arthur, back to business." Eames sits back, leaning away from Arthur. He does his best to stifle the groan of pain, but it doesn't quite work. Arthur's face blazes red and hot again — this is all his fault. Everything is his fault.

"It was my fault, Eames. All of it." Arthur says this with his head in his hands, his face burning with shame.

Eames lets out another mocking laugh — but seems to think better of it halfway through, chokes it back. "It was my dream, darling." He carefully shifts so his face is closer to Arthur's bent shoulders. "My dream, not yours. You remember that, right?"

"It doesn't matter," Arthur hisses, "it was my fucking _job_ and I let it all happen. I—"

"Darling, you couldn't have…It was new, and I had all this shit, and…"

Arthur stands up, one fluid motion, shoving Eames away, ignoring the gasp of pain. "No. You…no. It was me. Stop it, just stop." He spins on his heel and walks — nearly jogs, really — to his car. As he pulls away, he makes sure to let Eames see him dialing his cell phone. The ambulance should arrive soon, and Eames will heal, and Arthur will be long gone and none of this will ever happen again.


	8. Chapter 8: Sharpening Knives

Arthur is an impeccable driver. Even in his current state, his muscle memory guides him along the winding highway, through the gates of his neighborhood. He is not aware of any time passing: one moment he is pulling out of the parking lot, on the phone with emergency services, the next he is sitting in his garage, his car idling as the garage door slides shut behind him. For one brief, terrible moment, he sees himself limp in the seat and longs for it. But as always, he shakes the thought away, turns the engine off, and enters his home.

It has taken three years for Arthur to get his house the way he wants it. The floors all had to be torn up, of course, and recovered in oak he'd stained himself. The walls were beautifully repainted, and the kitchen completely remodeled to accommodate Arthur's habit of fixing himself multi-course dinners and elegant desserts for no reason at all. Arthur loves to cook, loves to create something delicious and beautiful from raw meat and vegetables. He stands in the doorway for a moment, looking in at his gleaming kitchen where no one eats, the dining table with three ever-empty chairs.

Eames, Arthur suddenly remembers, has come over a few times, mostly for team dinners, and Arthur feels his face straining to smile at the memory of the big Brit hunkering under counters.

—-

"Yes, love, I know you hire someone to do it, but it's a waste of money, I'm a perfectly good knife sharpener."

"It's not that, dammit, Eames, they're good knives, I won't have you ruining them, they cost me too much money—"

"Ah! Found it!" Eames's head poked out from under the sink. "Why do you keep it back here with the sponges, darling?"

Arthur's teeth gritted. "I don't _keep_ it anywhere, I don't use it. You can't sharpen my knives, Eames, all right? Just, go do something else."

"Oh, posh, I've nothing else to do while you cook that divine-looking rack of lamb and Ariadne and Yusuf run off to neck in a closet. What do you want me to do, go argue with Cobb about that last job? Let him tear my head off for his poor form? Not bloody likely." Eames had been standing and stretching as he spoke, arching his back in a way that Arthur tried desperately not to notice. "Now, let me at those knives."

—-

Suddenly Arthur is so tired, he can barely stagger down the hallway to his bedroom. He is asleep before he hits the pillow. His last thought before falling into the dream is a wisp of gratitude that no one is there to judge him for still wearing his three-piece suit, splattered with Eames's blood. _At least no one can see me_, he thinks as the darkness swallows him up.


	9. Chapter 9: Parking Lot

Eames knows he should speak. He should reassure Arthur, or tell him he loves him, or _something. _But whatever Arthur did to his shoulder is suddenly making his vision cloud over because it hurts so goddamn much, and by the time he shakes it off, Arthur is in his car, pulling away. Eames sits in shock. Arthur left him, he _left_ him laying in a fucking parking lot, bleeding, with at least one broken rib and something devastatingly wrong with his shoulder. He _left_. Arthur always leaves, but usually he has the decency to not break Eames's bones and strand him in a parking lot.

The pain wells up behind Eames's eyes again, but he doesn't have time for it. He staggers up from the ground — thank god for years of being a drunk, he thinks — and looks around for any trace of Arthur's car. There's none, of course, Arthur drives like a maniac, he's probably already home by now. Eames normally knows exactly where to go from wherever he is, like a map's in his head, but he's not used to pain like this in the real world. Dreams, sure, he's had worse. But in waking time, very few people get the jump on Eames, and he never wants to repeat this experience.

Off in the distance, he hears a siren. "Oh, lovely," he mutters to himself. Arthur hadn't been thinking clearly, calling 911 to a warehouse full of illegal dream tech. In some way, though, that was a good sign. Maybe Arthur cared more about Eames than the tech, even if only for that moment. However, Arthur isn't here, and Eames doesn't have time to waste. His own cell phone miraculously survived Arthur's attack, so he quickly calls 911.

"Yes, hello, sorry, you lot got a call a few minutes ago sending you to—Yes, that's right. No, I'm terribly sorry, my friend has an odd sense of humor. Yes, it's…No, there's nothing there. Sorry. He thought it was funny. Yes, I'll tell him. Thanks ever so much."

The siren shuts off a few moments later, and Eames breathes a sigh of relief. Limping, his shoulder radiating pain, he makes his way to his own car.


	10. Chapter 10: Back in Place

He goes to Ariadne, because who else was he going to go to? Cobb was the closest thing Arthur had to a friend, but he is at home with his kids, and Eames isn't about to barge in there, bleeding and swearing, to make Cobb help. Yusuf is back home in Mombassa, Saito is busy as usual, all he has is the hope that Ariadne's free and willing to put his shoulder back where it belongs.

Driving a stick shift is more difficult than he remembers, but then he hasn't had to drive it one-handed in a long time. Ariadne, luckily, is renting a shitty walkup not too far from the warehouse, and he somehow, miraculously, manages to make it all the way up her ten flights of stairs before collapsing, banging his head into the door on his way down.

When he opens his eyes, she's looking at him with the strangest expression. Her face is always pale, so she hasn't gone white, exactly, but there is a definite sense of terror there, barely restrained. "Whu…" he clears his throat. "What's wrong?"

She just stares at him, and suddenly he remembers. "Oh, god, Ari, it's nothing, trust me, it's not as bad as it looks. I just, my shoulder. I need my shoulder and then I'll be out of your way."

"I can't set your shoulder, Eames, I don't know how." Her face still has that strange look. "And it's hardly nothing, you look like a train hit you. What the fuck happened?" Ariadne's voice is always strangely even, regardless of how panicked or freaked out she is. The only clue to her distress is her language, and Eames flinches at the curse. It means she's scared, and upset, and scared some more, and it's his fault she feels that way.

"Love, I'm sorry, I really am, but I assure you, it's nothing. Just some bumps and bruises and this shoulder. I need you, Ari, I can talk you through it. I've popped enough shoulders back in to know how, it's just a touch tricky to do it myself."

Ari's hitching breath, holding back her sobs, does nothing to muffle the horrifying sound of Eames's shoulder going back to where it belongs. She doesn't take her hands away for a moment, just leaves them there, and Eames reaches his good arm up to stroke her hair. "You did a marvelous job, love, and I'm sorry again."

She shakes his hand off, leaves the room, slams and locks the door down the hall. Eames feels sharp stabs and dull aches from every inch of his battered body, but he doesn't have time for this shit. Arthur is somewhere doing god knows what, and everything depends on Eames finding him in time.

He can't think here, with Ari's cluttered living room full of architecture and photography shit, with her pictures of marks looking at him. He leaves, feeling like traitor, hoping against hope that Ariadne will forgive him someday for this.

"If I was Arthur," he says to himself shakily as he inches down the stairs, "where would I go?" If it was Eames, he'd go to a pub, but Arthur's never been that way. Arthur would go home, or would drive into a tree and kill himself because Arthur can't deal with pain, emotional pain, at all, and if Arthur's face when he left is anything to judge by, Eames wouldn't be surprised if Arthur is flashing back and forth between the dream and reality, and swiftly losing track of everything. Eames has done that enough times to recognize it. He isn't Catholic anymore, but as he gingerly pulls out of Ari's parking lot, he finds himself whispering prayers to saints and angels that Arthur isn't dead, that Arthur isn't dead, that Arthur isn't dead.


	11. Chapter 11: In the Dark

Eames doesn't have a key, of course, something that only occurs to him as he pulls into the driveway of Arthur's house. He'd driven slowly, carefully, as much to scan the sides of the road as to avoid further injuring himself. Arthur's windows are dark, the garage door is closed, and Eames can't tell for sure if anyone is there. Luckily for Eames, he's had enough experience breaking and entering that it only takes him six minutes to dismantle and disarm the security systems - three of them, to be exact - and slide inside the house.

Those six minutes apparently give Arthur just enough time to grab his bedside Glock and stake out the hallway. When the first bullet screams past Eames's ear, burying itself in the wall, Eames nearly pisses himself. When he realizes that he's not dead, he knows Arthur's not right. Either he's doing it on purpose, or he's taken out his contact lenses and not put on his glasses, or something. Arthur never misses, not from this range, not with the Glock. Something is terribly, terribly wrong, and Eames is more scared of that than of Arthur shooting at him. He ducks, military training kicking in instantly, rolling to find cover behind Arthur's favorite leather sofa.

"Who's there?" Arthur barks from his cover. "Identify yourself." His voice is wrong, too, not his normal tone at all.

"Arthur, love, it's me. It's Eames." He inches around the sofa, craning his neck and trying desperately not to think about how much he hurt himself in the roll. Where is Arthur? He must be in the hallway, but with the lights off and the sun going down, Eames's shitty night vision is kicking in and he can't see, he can't fucking _see_, and Arthur is all wrong, shooting badly and his voice is terrible.

While Eames is peering into the shadows, wishing like hell he'd had that surgery to fix his issues with the dark, Arthur pounces, the gun in one hand, knuckles white and face blank.


	12. Chapter 12: Coming Up on One

Eames hears the ugly sound before he feels it - his shoulder dislocating again, perfect, that can't be a good thing. Arthur kneels on his chest, leveling the Glock at his forehead. "Arthur, Arthur," Eames chokes out, the weight on top of him making that broken rib scream, "it's me, it's Eames, what the fuck, it's me, Arthur." He keeps talking, shouting really, an endless stream of their names.

Arthur's face clears a tiny bit, just a small twitch, but it's enough. Eames presses the opening, "Arthur, love, what is it? What's wrong?"

"Dreaming," Arthur barks again, the awful sound of his voice all wrong and grating, hurting Eames's ears somehow, "need to wake up."

Eames feels all of the blood drain from his face. "Ah..." he's stuttering now, stuttering like a child, because Arthur scares him. "Ch-check your totem, Arthur, check it, check your totem, check your fucking totem Arthur, do it!" His voice has risen into a terrified cry because Arthur's acting like Mal, fuck, he's Mal all over again, Eames should have seen this coming, he should have noticed, but Arthur's always so private, so restrained, and suddenly Eames can half-breathe again and Arthur's gone.

Eames can't move much, but he angles his neck to look around. Arthur's crouching on the floor, curled tight like a spring, clutching his damn die, rolling it over and over again. Eames knows Arthur's totem, knows it's coming up on one every time, knows it's telling Arthur the truth, that this is reality. Eames can't blink, can't breathe, because Arthur keeps rolling like he doesn't believe it, and finally, finally. Arthur collapses into a puddle on the floor and Eames can hear sobbing.

Through the pain, Eames fights his way over to Arthur, wraps his good arm around the weeping man, pulls him into a half-body embrace.

"I'm sorry, Eames, I'm sorry, I thought-"

"No, darling, shut up for once, all right?"

They sit in silence for the second time that day, Arthur's heaving sobs slowing, his breath getting more and more even.

Eames hates himself for it, but he says it anyway, the pain's making him foggy. "Fuck, Arthur, my shoulder again? Ari just put that back in." He instantly regrets it, cringes, waits for Arthur's reaction. Nothing comes. Arthur breathes heavily, slowly, in and out in a regular rhythm. The man is asleep again, fallen asleep curled in Eames's arm, legs on Eames's lap, head on Eames's shoulder.


	13. Chapter 13: A Bit Less Brilliant

Eames wasn't one for labels. Never had been. Not about sexuality or talents or attire, or anything really. When people — Arthur, the military, marks, anyone — tried to put him in a box, fit him into a category, it just rankled him. Made him itch to prove them wrong, show them he was more than they thought. Like in the army, when he'd first joined, they looked at his size and his temper and classed him immediately as a dumb grunt, front line fodder. Now, Eames didn't particularly care for that: he knew he was clever, knew he could do more. So he learned a new skill. He learned everything there was to know about codebreaking.

The illogic of it attracted him at first. Among the few compliments Arthur'd ever given Eames, his talent for what Arthur called "lateral thinking" and Eames called "not being a stick-up-the-arse" had been brought up more than once. Eames could see things differently than most people, than logical, rational types like Arthur and Ariadne and the other codebreakers he'd met. Eames could look at a puzzle and see the answer in a flash, but it took him ages to figure out why and how. Codebreaking, and then forgery, fit nicely in his skill set.

Forgery eventually got him noticed, recruited into the dream tech program. At first, the dream sharing was to give soldiers practice killing. They needed to be desensitized, to forget how to hesitate. And Eames was chosen to help that process, by believably (important word, that) impersonating an enemy. Eames died a hundred times, more, at the hands of men who woke up shaken and sorrowful the first time, but later never even glanced at him.

Arthur, on the other hand, with his mind and attention to detail, got recruited out of some hotshot private academy for math geniuses or something. He'd been picked to build, to help construct the dream world. Of course, at the time, no one knew yet that you had to be inventive, creative to build. They thought it was all about precision, which Arthur has always had in spades.

Sometimes Eames wonders, especially in moments like this, if things would have been better if Arthur had been just a bit less brilliant, or a touch less driven. If Arthur wasn't so good at labeling, organizing, cataloguing; if he wasn't so good at his job, would he still be this broken person in the arms of a forger?


	14. Chapter 14: Waking Up

When Arthur opens his eyes, he is in his own bed. For a brief, beautiful moment, he thinks it was all a dream. Then his eyes drift to the chair beside the bed and he sees Eames, asleep, snoring lightly, looking like a truck had run over him. Arthur had not realized, had not seen just how bad it was. The morning light makes every bruise look as black as Eames's tattoos, and Arthur feels the sick sudden drop of his stomach. _I did that_, he thinks, _me. It is my fault he looks like that, on top of everything else that's my fault_. Eames's arm, at least, is sitting properly, so there must have been a moment when Arthur had popped it back into place.

Trying to be silent, Arthur sits up in bed, letting the comforter fall away from him. He is still fully dressed, tie and vest and blood all over everything, and some tiny rational part of his brain makes a note to throw out this suit, these sheets, anything that has Eames's blood on it. But the majority of his thoughts are suddenly sharp and angry and frightened, and he moves quickly to where Eames sits dozing, shakes him awake.

"Ah, hello," Eames mumbles, voice rasped from sleep and shouting. His eyes look glassy and a little vacant, and Arthur wants to kill something, anything, to get that look out of them. Instead, in the only moment in recent memory in which he doesn't think something through, Arthur takes Eames's face in his hands, carefully avoiding the bruises, and presses his lips to Eames's.

They have never kissed, not once, not in real life. In the dream, the first dream, before it went to shit, there was a moment when they were just laughing and playing and Arthur was building all around them, changing things, and he had turned to look at Eames. And in that moment, Arthur's grin stretching all over his mouth, dimples and crinkles and light in his eyes, and Eames had kissed him, and Arthur, caught in the joy of the dream, had kissed back.

But that was years ago, and they had barely even touched since then. Arthur is not inexperienced, certainly, he has been kissing men since he was sixteen, but Eames is different. And the kiss in the dream, and this kiss now, they were not planned, and every other kiss in Arthur's entire life has been planned and plotted to within an inch of its life. If Arthur had been thinking, he would have panicked, because this was exactly why he had never kissed Eames, rarely touched him, refused to let him be anything more that what he was. This kiss, the other kiss, the dream: Arthur knew absolutely that he should not lose control, ever, not if he could help it. But this kiss, right now, he could not help it, could not stop it, could not make himself end it first.


	15. Chapter 15: Not Today

Eames hasn't expected this, not at all, not ever. He's thought about it, dreamed about it, wished for it, hated himself for wishing for it - all of them, over and over in an endless cycle. Expected it, never. Arthur's lips are chapped and cracked, his hands keeps bumping sore spots and bruises, and Eames can't get the smell of blood out of his nose. But bugger all that, because Arthur is _kissing him_, in real life. Eames remembers how he got here, doesn't need to check his totem, knows this is real, that Arthur's tongue and teeth and breath and mouth, they are real.

Eames shifts ever so slightly, raises his good hand, gently presses his fingertips to Arthur's glorious cheekbones. Something in the movement startles Arthur, and the kiss breaks apart. Before anything can flood Arthur's eyes, before he can change his mind, Eames pulls Arthur back to him with his good hand, anchors their mouths together, kisses whatever Arthur feared away. Arthur makes a sound, a small, heartbreaking mewl of pain and pleasure and longing and sorrow and Eames curses his own body for hurting too much to do what he wants.

What he wants, of course, is to pull Arthur down, away, onto the bed, and make it all go away. But his shoulder, and his ribs, and sleeping in a chair all conspire against him, and so the kiss goes on and on, deeper and needier and hotter, and when Arthur finally sighs into his mouth, unspoken questions around them, Eames can't say yes, he just can't. His lips stiffen and go still, and Arthur's eyes creak open, and Arthur pulls away.

"I'm sorry, darling," Eames murmurs, his good hand still holding the other man close, not letting him leave, not letting him run, "I just...hurt, and I'll be fine, but not today." He cringes, squints his eyes shut, braces himself for Arthur to flee, but. No movement. Peeks. Arthur's still there, kneeling in front of him, face soft and open and relaxed, and Eames can't breathe because he hasn't seen Arthur like this since the dream, and that's when he blacks out.


	16. Chapter 16: Eyes Open

When he opens his eyes, it's not because he wants to. He'd much rather stay where it's dark and warm and quiet and comfortable, but Arthur's voice keeps nagging him, making him open his eyes into a place where it's bright and noisy and freezing cold, a place where he's in awful bloody pain and skin crawling with fear, a place where he's alive.

And so he opens his eyes, over and over, and Arthur's face hardens into his bossy, pushy, normal self, but Eames doesn't even notice because he's so upset about the noise and the lights, and then Arthur's hand isn't in his anymore and Eames flails, struggles, is terrified: Arthur's gone, all these strangers, nothing makes sense. His totem isn't in his pocket, he doesn't have any pockets, what if what if what if—

And then his eyes close again, and open again what he's sure is just a second later, and he's in a darkened room, a quiet room, a few whooshing noises and a soft, regular beeping, and someone is breathing. Not him, someone else. And Eames stiffens and reaches for his bedside pistol, but of course it's not there because he's not at home, and all he learns is that he's got a tube in his hand and his bad shoulder is in restraints and he's so very afraid until Arthur looms over him.

Arthur, all dark and serious, waves a hand in front of Eames's face, and if Eames was himself he'd giggle, so he does, and then the giggling gets out of control and suddenly Eames realizes how dulled and gray everything is, and he understands with the butter-knife edge of his brain: he's drugged, probably in a hospital, and Arthur's here, and so everything will be all right. A sound far too much like a sob escapes him, and Arthur gently, so lightly that he can't quite feel it, rests two fingers on Eames's jaw, and says something very quiet and even.

"Go to sleep, Mr. Eames."


	17. Chapter 17: Rumplestiltskin

"Why am I? Yeah?"

Arthur's face crinkles with a badly-concealed smile. "I think you dropped a few words, Mr. Eames." He peers up into the car's rearview mirror, catches the gaze of the man lying prone across the backseat. "Care to try again?"

"Fuck off," Eames mumbles, closing his eyes. "I. Hmm. Comfortable, this."

"Eames, wake up. Come on. Eames!"

"Eh, wotcher, hmm?" He blinks, a soft, open face from the drugs.

"I'm not carrying you into the house as dead weight, you know. Your legs work, after all." Arthur carefully, calmly, eyes on the road, not looking back for a second.

"Why are you? What? What house?" Eames struggles mightily to sit up, but the just-set rib and finally-bound shoulder won't let him.

Arthur reminds him: a place to stay, to recuperate, and Eames lives in a piece of shit fifth-floor walkup, "which doesn't even make sense, Eames, it's not like you don't have the money."

"Ah, well. That. Goes to other things."

"Like?"

A yawn, snuggling his head down into the leather upholstery. "Food. And…things."

"Eames!"

"Hmmm?"

Casting desperately about for a topic. "What's your first name?"

A bark of laughter. "You know that, love."

A peek in the mirror. Eames's face is still soft and slightly flushed, but the sharp light is coming back into his eyes. "I don't remember."

"Rumplestiltskin."

"A round of applause for pronouncing that on the first try!" Arthur grins, his dimples flashing. Eames will be okay, he knows it. He knows it.

—-

They get Eames into the house together. Eames is mostly dead weight, really, but Arthur is strong. Lays Eames down on the guest bed. Starts to work his shoes off.

"Undressing me at last, eh, darling?"

Arthur gets the left shoe off. "Oh, yes indeed. Just what I always dreamt—" a shock of sudden silence.

Eames sits up, struggling and hating himself for struggling. But he gets it done, and has a moment of absurd pride. "Ah, that. Yes. Arthur." Steels himself. "Can we talk about it? Now that I'm shoeless in your home and we've hurt each other enough today and you know my shoes are on the other feet and…" He stops. His face quirks. "That sentence got away from me a bit."

Arthur shakes, a tiny seismic shudder, impossible to notice unless it was Eames watching. "I don't want to." His voice is small and afraid and Eames hates it, _hates_ it. Wants his Arthur back, the strong and true and solid one who never, ever, breaks down. But then, that Arthur's always been a lie. The real Arthur is this one, afraid and beautiful and perfect.

"Why, love?" Eames reaches down, puts one hand on Arthur's ever-so-slightly mussed hair. "Why can't we?" The drugs are wearing off, a bit; the pain's good, though, it's sharpening him up. He can think again.

Arthur heaves a heavy huff of breath. Stands, shaking off Eames's trailing hand. Pulls a chair over, sits across from where Eames perches on the edge of the bed. "Talk."


	18. Chapter 18: And Then, And Then, And Then

_In the dream: it's pure creation, just playing, a little cafe from Eames's childhood, because he's the dreamer and Arthur just plucks things out of his head like a violinist, and there are trees everywhere that Eames thinks must be Arthur's, because they're symmetrical and who else on the planet would make symmetrical trees? And Arthur is struggling half-heartedly, the only time Eames has seen him be half-hearted about anything, to remember their job, their assignment, their orders, and Eames is just giggling and running about, looking the projections in the face, interrogating his own subconscious — they only barely know what they're doing, only a bit, and Arthur keeps playing with things, changing the sky into a chandelier just to see if he can do it, changing the roads to be American "because, Mr. Eames, the British method of driving makes no sense," with a smile. And Arthur is happy and laughing and the dream-sun is golden and melting all over everything and Eames bends ever so slightly, kisses him, and Arthur kisses back and they shine and glimmer in the sun for a while. And then, and then, and then…_

"You weren't an architect, Arthur, you couldn't have been expected to keep hold of it all."

"We were both untrained and stupid. We didn't know anything about projections, or limbo. Any of it. And—"

"And they just assumed we'd be able to do it, first time, no nasty nothing to hurt us."

"How did they not know? How could they not know, Eames?"

"I haven't the faintest, Arthur."

A long exhale, like Arthur is trying to sink to the bottom of a pool. "And then—"

_In the dream: They've been down too long, too much time, and things start to crinkle around the edges. The gleaming sky darkens suddenly, instantly, and the cafe is old, older than the world, and the trees shed leaves in a whistling, hissing swoosh, and it's cold and dark and they don't know enough to recognize the warnings, the danger, to see what Eames's mind is trying to tell them: get out, get out, get out. Instead, practical Arthur frowns and starts to fix things, but they won't stay. The sky fades in and out, Arthur's will against Eames's subconscious, and Eames doesn't remember half of what's in there, has blocked things out, but the nightmares start peeking around corners and hovering in shadows and Arthur doesn't notice, is trying to fix things, when he hears Eames's high, keening wail and turns to see he's disappeared. And then, and then, and then…_

"Where did you go? Limbo?"

"Probably. I'm nearly sure of it, but I've never been back, so no guarantee."

"Fuck, Eames."

"Yeah. What about you, what did you do?"

"It was all breaking up, I was trying to hold it together, keep things under control. I thought you'd come back, any minute, and we'd get out together."

"But when I came back—"

_In the dream: Eames is screaming, gushing blood from limbs and joints, not enough to die yet, just enough to hurt and shake and scream, and Arthur drops the last pretense of control and runs, runs to the bleeding man, tries to stop it, rips off the suit jacket he's wearing in the dream, his favorite in real life, tears it, ties off wounds and wraps others and tries, tries, tries to make it stop. And whatever Eames has seen is still flashing in his eyes, and Arthur is talking, rambling, a cacophony of sounds that are supposed to be words of comfort and control but are really utter nonsense because the dream is collapsing around them and they're sliding, sliding into a place that no one comes back from, and Arthur knows, sudden and sharp and clear, in a voice in his head that will grow louder and louder from this moment on, what he needs to do. And then, and then, and then…_

"You shot me. Right here, in the forehead."

"It was the only thing I knew to do. That was the only thing anyone knew: if you die in the dream, you wake up in real life."

"Arthur, we didn't even have totems, they gave us nothing. So I woke up, still screaming, and looked over at you, your face all scrunched in your sleep."

"I woke up, too. Caught your eye. Knew it was my fault for not holding the dream together—"

"But it wasn't, love, it wasn't your fault or mine. We're neither of us the bad guy here."

"But I was the architect, Eames."

"Yes, and you were brilliant at it like you're brilliant at everything, but being an architect takes training out the ass, you know that. Look at Dom — he's still learning things. And Ariadne, well, she's a talent, it's not normal how quick she picked it up."

"We didn't know anything."

"No one did, darling, it was early days then. It's no one's fault, not really."

"So you got drunk."

"And you put in for a transfer."


	19. Chapter 19: Nodding Off

They talk all night, a real conversation for the first time ever. They talk about why Eames can't eat pierogi anymore, at all, ever. They talk about why Arthur keeps a spare apartment in Paris, one he has only used three times in five years. They talk about the Fischer job and the Saito job and that job three years ago where Arthur burned down a block of buildings in a rage after Eames bled out and that job five years ago, that first job together since the dream, where they were careful and correct and, it turns out, desperately longing for each other, and after they woke up they both went a little wild, which for Arthur means that he had a series of one-night stands and got drunk a few times, and for Eames means he doesn't have a conscious memory of the next week of his life, but woke up with a new tattoo, in Switzerland, in bed with a woman and two other men.

They talk, most of all, about each other. About how Arthur was and is afraid of Eames, afraid of Eames's capacity to disrupt and disturb the perfection and order Arthur has built up in his mind. About how Eames hungered for Arthur for years, how Arthur shattered him, ruined him for anyone else, one-night stands don't count because it was always Arthur, all Arthur, in his mind and in his heart.

They talk and talk and talk, and at some point Eames starts to nod off because it's been a long day, after all, and he struggles awake because of Arthur, because some seething part of the darkness in his mind is saying that this chance, this situation, this opportunity will never, ever happen again, and if he goes to sleep he'll lose Arthur forever. But he can't force his eyes open forever, and eventually he starts to slide sideways into a soft sleep.

And Arthur, in that quiet thrilling moment when Eames's eyes flutter and shut, when Eames's mouth slackens, when Eames's breathing starts to deepen and slow, when Eames's head rocks slowly forward like a glacier on the move — Arthur is shaken. Arthur is terrified, suddenly and irrationally, that he is dreaming. Arthur does not dream much, really. The night terrors have calmed, that night's flashback notwithstanding, and Arthur's sleep tends to be silent and thick.

And so he checks his totem, because if he is dreaming, he never wants to wake up, he wants to emulate Dom and Mal and stay here until he and Eames have grown old and old and old together. He wants to build castles and cathedrals and a life with Eames. He wants Eames, every tattooed and battered inch of Eames, every dark space in Eames's mind and every slick of sweat on Eames's back and every bullet in Eames's guns, and if that means he stays asleep for the rest of his life, he will do it, instantly, no betraying thoughts clouding him.

So when his die comes up on one, and it is all real, his laugh wakes up Eames.


	20. Chapter 20: Light and Dark

_In a dream: The grass is pure green, the way it never is anywhere outside of a dream. The sun is a round yellow circle, the sky an unbroken blue. In many ways, it's a child's dream: simple and clean and safe. It's the way Arthur has started to dream, now, as if he's relearning the art of it.__Eamesdoesn't go into his own dreams, still, but Arthur's dreams are becoming more and more manageable, appealingly secure and beautiful and welcoming. And so here they sit, soft and happy and calm in a stand of trees in__a wide green meadow on a clear summer day._

_Arthur's face is relaxed and open, the dream-sun glimmering and bouncing off of his dark hair; the light is fracturing through the leaves above where he sits, leaning against the bark of a perfectly symmetrical tree. His tie is slightly loosened, his cuffs unbuttoned and turned up show to his forearms. For Arthur, it's a positively slovenly look. "So."_

_It's directed at__Eames, who sprawls in the grass where Arthur sits; his head lolls in Arthur's lap, the light sparkling and dancing on his broad face. He opens his eyes at Arthur's voice. "So?" he asks softly. _

_"__So." Arthur pauses again. Looks down at__Eames, his face soft and fond. Traces__Eames's__lips with a delicate finger, brushes a blade of grass from his broad forehead. "I forget what I was going to say." _

_Eames__closes his eyes, stretches his mouth into a grin. "Ah, probably better that way, love. You talking usually leads to someone getting shot."_

_Arthur laughs, ringing and clear in the air of the dream. "Well, you talking usually leads to something very expensive showing up in our living room,__Eames, so why don't you shut up?"_

_Eames__gives Arthur the finger and pulls him down to kiss in one fluid motion. Overhead, the golden sun of the dream dapples over everything. _

The music cue plays, and the two men come awake in the warehouse. "Cobb and the others will be here any minute, Eames, get up."

Eames murmurs something lascivious in a voice still heavy with sleep.

"No, I don't think so, Eames. One, we don't have time — get that off your arm, dammit — and two, they'll be here any minute."

"Your fault, love, you set the time for the job. Could have put it off another hour, couldn't you?"

"No, Eames, and it's _your_ fault. I wasn't…I can't believe we even did that, you know we're not supposed to use the PASIV for personal shit."

Eames swings up off the chair, stands, strides over to Arthur. His face suddenly serious, his eyes dark and guarded. "You regret it?"

Arthur's face freezes. "No, Eames, shit, I didn't mean that."

"Ah, then it's all fine, isn't it, love?"

When the rest of the team traipse into the warehouse, they silently agree to never mention how out of breath Arthur is, nor the hickey on Eames's neck, and especially not the way Arthur andEames disappear for hours after every job now, showing back up at the bar freshly showered and very relaxed. And when Eames stays in town after the job, and when Arthur starts driving both of them to the warehouse instead of taking separate cars, and months later when they come into work wearing plain golden bands on their left hands…well, the team doesn't say anything about that, either. It's none of their business, is it, as long as the work gets done and nobody dies.

And when, that day with the rings, Eames kisses Arthur in front of the team for the first time, and Arthur kisses him back, hand resting on Eames's hip, the team somehow manages not to cheer aloud. Instead, Cobb asks how long they'd planned on keeping it all a secret, and waves away their attempts to treat at the bar that night. "It's on me, you idiots."

Ariadne is the last one out of the warehouse, as usual. Yusuf fairly bounces along to his car, jabbering to Cobb about something complicated and sciencey while Cobb pretends to listen and actually texts the sitter. Arthur and Eames half-jokingly throw punches over who's driving, although as usual Arthur ends up behind the wheel. Saito glides silently to his limo, phone to his ear, speaking quietly and calmly to someone he obviously wants to intimidate. And Ariadne, her heart full of light, reaches behind her and flips the switch, plunging the warehouse into darkness.


End file.
